


First Space and the Right Place

by Dayadhvam



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Backstory, Canon Era, Character Study, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 01:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11681172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dayadhvam/pseuds/Dayadhvam
Summary: Shay had asked him, with the sunrise before them: “Have you ever had this feeling, to know that something so wondrous might become so common?”Yes, yes, yes.Or perhaps it was the other way around, the common becoming wondrous—when Hunk had moved from place to place in search of a new home, and learned to be more than a stranger in a strange land.





	First Space and the Right Place

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Carol Ann Duffy's "[Originally](http://greatpoets.livejournal.com/3040040.html)."

**4\. Galaxy Garrison**

Innovative Crisis Reaction was his last class of the day—and, luckily for the endurance of his attention span, his favorite—so when Hunk returned to his room he was still daydreaming about the water purification system Koplar would let them experiment with during the next session. As the door to his shared dorm slid open, he was greeted by, “Hey, hey—so your neighbor does what, trade under the table in fish?”

“… Huh?” Hunk rewinded; revisited Lance’s question, and blinked the sight of ruined graphene film out of his mind’s eye. “What are you talking about?”

“Your ma sends her love from the nowhere hills,” Lance said, sprawled on his bed. He raised his right arm and pointed to the squashed bundle on Hunk’s desk, which looked like a spineless porcupine trussed up in a plastic straitjacket. “Mail inspection note says that she says it’s newly smoked trout thanks to one door down and across.”

“Oh yeah, Mr. Z!” Hunk grinned. “He’s sixth-generation shrimper, or at least he used to be. He’s got connections.”

“Uhuh.” Lance propped himself up on his elbows, and waggled his eyebrows. “That sounds… let me think… _fishy_ —“

—and let out an exaggerated yelp when the package sailed over his left shoulder.

“I know you know I saw that coming,” said Hunk with a laugh, ambling over to the bed. He sat down next to Lance and picked up the parcel. “Actually, Mr. Z probably prepped these after getting them from work at the aqua-pon. I told my mom in my last call I was thinking about rigging up a smoker in the small side kitchen, so she must’ve told him—oh my god, he uses the _best_ brine—”

“ _Brine_?”

“Nectar of the gods,” Hunk said fervently, and dangled the trout in front of Lance’s skeptical face. “I’ll give you dibs.”

*

There was no trout in the desert, of course, though Hunk knew at least desert pupfish lived up to their name and eked out survival somewhere far from the Garrison in defiance of both natural and unnatural extremities. Hunk figured he was many rungs below desert pupfish on the ladder of hardiness; he felt ill-suited to the harsh terrain, which in turn seemed to suit the intent of the school—or so he might grumble, during an occasional passing low mood. “Don’t you wonder what it’d be like if they stuck the school somewhere else instead of here? Like the South Pole?” he asked Lance as they walked back from a grueling afternoon round of outdoor PT the next day. “Dehydration and dust all over, or surprise frostbite? What’s the nicer poison?”

“A snowball fight would be nice right around now,” Lance mumbled dreamily. “Like what we see on the shows, up north. With mango shaved ice.” He raised his arms above his head with a wince; the dark outline of his fingers, outstretched upon the ground, nearly kissed the silhouette that the Garrison brought to mute existence in the dirt with every setting of the sun. Together they took a few more steps, and emerged from sunlight into shadow.

“Ahhh.” Lance sighed with relief. “At least tomorrow will be cooler. Sim work, yeah!”

“Ehhh,” Hunk said, eyes unfocused, and didn’t feel relieved at all.

Lance flashed him a glance and a wink. “Hey, don’t worry. You wouldn’t get so spacesick if you did more sim rounds with me in our off time. And helloooo, good company? I can’t turn down a chance for that.”

“Just wait, you can say that again to me when you end up cleaning the inside of the machine.” Hunk pivoted nimbly around a gaggle of students on their way to the mess, and tugged Lance along with him. “Anyway, I’ll get used to it sooner or later—I mean, not like I came here to be your kind of ace pilot.”

“Man, and you’re not even _trying_ to butter me up. I totally won the roommate lottery,” Lance said—and, chanting, “Ace pilot, ace pilot,” under his breath like a mantra, danced his way down the rest of the hallway, which after a month and a half of living together Hunk had since accepted as commonplace practice.

At the door of their room, Lance did a shoddy pirouette and added—less enthused and more bemused—“You know, you told me why, but sometimes I feel like I still don’t get it. You come all the way to the Garrison, which is seriously top cream of the crop chance, and _then_ you list the best space jobs _last_ on your career preferences form, and—“

“Well, yeah? That way I’ll be posted somewhere on Earth,” Hunk pointed out, not for the first time.

“You’re missing the point!” Lance groaned. “ _Galaxy_ Garrison. You know. _Space_.” He gestured upward, to the unseeable sky beyond the confines of the ceiling. “Come on, my aunt would kill for the chance! She told me so many stories when I was a kid.”

“What, about rocket launch watch parties?”

“Nah, she came up with her own! The best kind of stories, no cheese moons included. She wanted to join the Arc T program when she was younger, but…” Lance shrugged; his mouth twisted; the door opened, and they entered. “Life happened, I guess. Least I can do is tell her all about being a pilot.”

Pilots! In the past, the Galaxy Garrison’s vid flyers had shone like flattened shells in Hunk’s hands, glossy and glamorous with pictures of star-dazzled, launch-ready space pioneers; they had parroted the old phrase about infinity and beyond so often at him that Hunk never wanted to hear or read those words again. But Mr. Z, chewing intensely on a toothpick, had said to Hunk when they ran into each other in the apartment stairwell: “Can’t say nothing about spaceships, but Eva’s friend’s niece went to the Garrison—she’s suiting up to do plants on the Station—and she says it’s the best bang for no buck. I can tell you for sure what they teach has gotta be lightning years ahead of what we do at the aqua-pon. It’ll be like the university visitors’ talks. Cutting edge! Fish farming’s small fry next to what you could do by playing God with the Atchafalaya.”

“Uh,” Hunk had said, blinking against the torrent of words—for his neighbor was rarely so chatty and free with impromptu thoughts. “Wait, I don’t want to play God! That just sounds like a disaster. And don’t you mean light years?”

A sly little grin had crept over Mr. Z’s face. “But don’t lightning years sound more interesting? And,” added the former boat captain, almost wistfully, “you get the bonus of manning a ship—in the _air_.”

 _Pilots!_ he had thought then; and thought now, with considerably more affection. Piloting was for other people, but surely not for him. In Hunk’s case, he’d take the Garrison for its top notch STEM curriculum, the best bang for no buck—among other benefits, he’d explained to his mother Sara. She hadn’t required his persuasion, for expedited naturalization was nothing to sniff at; she’d only nodded, eyes clear with resolve, and said, “If it works out for you…”

“I know,” Hunk told her, and closed his hands into tight fists against his chest: an old nervous habit. He’d never tried to shake it off. He didn’t care that it was a tell, for he didn’t see why he should have to hide his nerves. “Then it could work out for all of us.”

He could stomach a bit of queasiness, for the people he loved. He could stomach anything.

This didn’t mean Hunk couldn’t get sick of chicken for dinner though. Once they off-loaded their exercise gear, Hunk spent most of dinner poking fun at the bland, joyless Garrison-prepped staple while Lance dumped a glorious heap of ketchup on his own portion. After their meal run, they took turns in the bathroom; by the time Hunk wandered out of the shower, freshly scrubbed and toweled up, Lance was again sprawled out on his bed with homework scattered around his head.

Half past nine, and yet even Lance already seemed spent of energy. Hunk coughed loudly. “You can’t fall asleep now,” he said. “Isn’t that problem set due tomorrow?”

“Tell me about it,” Lance groaned almost inaudibly, face down in bed. “Nnngh, whatever.” He turned his head so Hunk could hear his next words more clearly. “So you got everything sorted out for your little sis and her birthday present, right? Kind of a weird request.”

“Oy, she’s as weird as I am,” Hunk said, with good cheer. Sina had asked him for the lecture recordings from his classes, so Hunk had cleaned up the audio and inserted playful motormouth comments of his own at regular intervals, which he knew she would find vastly entertaining. “And twice as smart. So don’t knock on her rep or you’re going to miss Thanksgiving dinner and my family’s best recipes. I’ve got the power of the invite.”

“You wouldn’t!” Lance did his best to give a winning grin, the effect marred by his face still half-buried in blankets. “And miss out on the honor of my presence?”

Hunk only snorted. “I already get that every day, what’s a few days without it?”

Lance shook his homework papers at Hunk with exaggerated outrage. “Fine, you can stay on Earth after we graduate,” he said. “I’ll jump from cargo to fighter track soon enough, and spam your account with vids in space. You’ll get so jealous you’ll have to follow me out there!”

“Nah, nope, no, not happening. My feet like the ground just fine.” Hunk had taken off his headband before showering, and carefully handwashed it; now he picked it up from his desk and smoothed out the fabric to check that it was dry. “I can see a hundred and one problems on Earth we gotta fix first,” he said. “You can do your eight years out in space, but I’ll skip the chronic zero-g.”

“I’m staying past the minimum,” Lance corrected. “ _Only_ eight? This is my future career for life, seriously.” He watched Hunk tie his headband on. “You still gunning for geo?”

“Geo, geotech, enviro,” Hunk recited on autopilot, and knotted the cloth at the back of his head. “Something in that mix. I mean, no matter what there’s going to be a ton of remedial projects I can join after I’m done. I want to do preventive, but that depends on how much buffer time we have for whatever projects are hiring. Hey, didn’t I say this before—“

“Sorry, sorry,” said Lance. “You know I didn’t come here to be your kind of engineering star. All I’m saying is, if you can do one better than the pumps and foundation work we’ve got at home, my family will be singing your praises for life.” He sighed and sunk his weight back down in the mattress. “I miss them,” he mumbled. It was rare for Lance to sound so subdued—not often with Hunk, and never in public. “It’s too dry here, and the food’s never going to measure up.”

“Never _ever_ ,” Hunk echoed, and reached for his package from home.

He liked this kind of food best: made with love, not merely to be consumed but to be enjoyed—and to be shared with a friend. “But hey,” he said to Lance, his smile translucent with delight, “I got to meet you. Dibs?”

 

 

**2\. Marshall Islands**

In Majuro they had already lived and waited a year and a half. They would need to wait three years and a half more before they could make a gamble with their next planned relocation, according to the law, but Hunk felt bad that he wasn’t more content with his lot—and then felt bad for feeling bad about it: for wasn’t it a perfectly ordinary feeling, to miss his home? Sometimes he still had to fight the whim to say _malō_ instead of _iokwe_ when greeting others. 

“Stranger if you didn’t miss it. I know I’ll miss my place whenever my family leaves,” his neighbor Luck had said once, when Hunk put this thought to him. Luck’s real name was Luckner, but everyone called him Luck— _born with it_ , his parents joked, _though what a pity we can’t tell if it’s good or bad_. When a new kid in the neighborhood had introduced himself as Hanson, Luck had promptly said, “Handsome Hanson! Nice to meet you, our code names can be Handsome and Luck!”

“What,” said Hanson.

Everyone called him Hunk now. Hunk had been very insistent on that nickname and none other. It sounded much cooler, he had said, grinning all the while—so young and a Hunk already, an impressive feat. His father Iosefa had roared with laughter when he first heard the news. “Well!” he said, and for a moment shed the air of melancholy that kept him grim company so often these days. “You encountered some kind of luck, that’s for sure. Maybe the good will rub off on us.”

“Wishful thinking,” Sara had said wryly, and—glancing down at his little sister, fast asleep in her arms, added, “In that case, my little Hunk, do good and help get the groceries, won’t you? Sina’s taking up my hands.”

A year and a half spent in Majuro, a year and a half called Hunk; Sina was older, and more content to run around on her own chubby legs than be carried about while burbling loud indignities, but Hunk still picked up the shopping list every Friday morning, and stopped by the supermarket after school every Friday afternoon.

And like any other Friday afternoon, he squinted at his mother’s scrawl as he pushed the shopping cart, but unlike most afternoons—

“Argh!” squawked a tinny little voice.

“Whoa!” Hunk thrust the shopping list in his pocket and pulled the cart a few steps back. “Hey! You okay? Sorry, Junior, I didn’t see you.”

“Nah, Junior was the one running. Serves him right for ignoring me when I told him not to.” His classmate Betra came into the aisle behind her younger brother. “ _Iokwe_. Share a cab back?”

“Sure,” said Hunk, since they only lived a street apart. “Everything all right?”

“Oh, you mean why the extra grocery run?” Betra switched from Marshallese to English, to Hunk’s secret relief; what Marshallese he had picked up never failed to trip clumsily off his tongue. Betra was curt, but not unkind. “That’s because family’s come here from Ebon, so gotta get them settled in for now. My favorite auntie’s here, finally,” she said, with a sigh more of relief than of happiness. Her eyes reflected the weak flicker of the store’s old second-gen diode lights.

“She makes the most amazing roasted breadfruit,” Junior piped up dutifully.

“There is no way you’re eating all of it,” Betra told him, putting on her best sisterly scary face.

“Oh man,” said Hunk. “That sounds great! So everyone’s together again—since they’ve all come here then?”

He wasn’t quite talented enough to hide his envy.

Betra looked at Hunk, the line of her mouth gone crooked with an unspoken, unwanted apology, and awkwardness reigned for some seconds as a decrepit electric fan wheezed at them from its corner. Hunk valiantly carried on: “So your cousins are here too, aren’t they? We’d love to have them over some time, kind of a welcome meal. Well, not kind of, definitely a welcome meal. I can make my special fried banana coconut pancakes recipe! Trust me, I’m past the test subject stage. But anyway, unless they’re visiting and not permanently moving here—I mean, not trying to assume or anything, they should come and eat with us.”

“They aren’t visiting,” Betra replied, looking away from Hunk. “But they’re not permanently moving here either. Well… my parents are talking about moving out and over in a few months’ time, once we get everyone’s paperwork worked out.”

She had never mentioned this prospect in class and the news ought to have surprised Hunk—but truth be told it did not, because the gist of the story was familiar enough. “You too? I guess—congrats,” he said to Betra, who looked very much like she did not wish to hear it. “Where are you headed in the States?”

“Hawaii,” Betra replied. “Or maybe Washington. The state, I mean, not the county, though the county’s fine too—we’ve got friends in all those places.” This too was a familiar story to Hunk: the Islands had been bleeding its people for years already, by way of the Compact’s overseas work provisions, and for that matter weren’t Hunk and his family also practicing the art of patience in order to qualify? When you were trapped between the indifference of nature on one side and the indifference of people on the other, you could only take what few paths were left unbarred.

“Tell us where you decide to go, okay?” Hunk said. “It’s always nice to know you’ve got friends out there.”

“You don’t even need to ask,” Betra said abruptly, her words writ in the air with fiery conviction. “And you know you can look us up, when you go too.”

 _When_ , not _if_. Such was the nature of optimism: to leave their homes behind. Hunk tried his hardest not to hate it.

They gathered the rest of their groceries while trying to one-up each other with increasingly fantastic excuses for missing homework. Hungry dogs had long been retired from the status of fallback excuse to be replaced by the menace of regular flooding, but their teacher wasn’t blind to the king tide schedule.

“The wind blew it out of my hands,” Hunk said, as they hailed a cab.

“It got taped over a hole in the mosquito netting,” Betra said, as they got in.

“I used it to swat a giant spider so it’s covered with spider insides and not fit to turn in,” Hunk countered.

Betra grimaced at the mental image. “Ugh. Let’s see… accidentally used for kindling.”

The cab driver watched them in the rearview mirror with raised eyebrows as the car sallied down the road in Majuro.

“Accidentally used to mop up grease,” said Hunk.

“Really,” said Betra. “Okay. We ran out of toilet paper.”

“… Sina ate it,” said Hunk.

“Sina probably can’t even chew it right,” Betra retorted. “Be more sensible about who to pick instead of a dog. In fact, Junior ate it.”

“I did?” Junior had been distracted by a bag of snack nuts, but now he zoomed into the conversation, drawn by the mention of his name. “What did I eat?”

“Replacement toilet paper,” Betra and Hunk said in unison, and then burst out laughing.

When the cab reached Betra’s street in Djarrit, they pooled their spare change together to pay the driver, and said their goodbyes. Bags swinging from both hands, Hunk walked through the plot of land owned by Betra’s family, across the next street, and up to the small, sedate little place that his family rented. “Groceries!” he announced as he entered and toed off his shoes.

“Do _not_ agree to the offer,” he heard his mother saying. “Not yet—just a moment—“ Sara poked her head out from the alcove that she’d long claimed as her own makeshift study, sitting on the pandanus mat. “Sorry, dear,” she said to him, looking oddly excited, “I have good news—I need to help cousin Manaia first though, could you keep an eye on Sina?” Back to the phone, into which she hissed with vehemence: “Absolutely not if it’s Nauru, that’s nonsense, you have nothing once you’re there! I’ll tell you now—I just heard the residency requirement here for citizenship’s been—“

Hunk carried the bags to the doorway of the kitchen and set them down, exchanging their weight for the weight of his little sister. Sina brandished her empty cup and set it on the ground, then blew a bubble at him. “Han,” she said. “Up! Up on top!”

He ignored her entreaty to ride on his shoulders. Instead, he carried her past the kitchen into the bedroom and set her down, chucking her playfully under the chin. “Masina Atamai,” he said, enunciating her name with deliberate care. “You so could eat my homework if I asked you to. Right?” 

“Han,” said Sina. “Homework?”

Hunk used his hands to shape an imaginary rectangle in the air for Sina. “Like this,” he said, then pointed to his mouth. “Paper. It’s a worthy cause!”

Was it possible for a three-year-old to look disgusted? “No paper,” announced Sina, and promptly lost interest in listening to him. Hunk deflated with mock disappointment. “Now how am I gonna boast about you to Betra?” he said. “Well, I guess you’re cooler than Junior anyway.”

“Uhuh,” said Sina. She eyed him, coolly vetting his suitability for playing, then showed him her hands palms up in an unspoken request. They’d played five rounds of increasingly competitive Fish Clap Catch when Sara called again: “Hunk, I’m done! I’ve got news, come quick.”

“Are you cooler than Junior?” Hunk asked Sina. “Come on, with me.” He could hear the brisk pitter patter of her feet as she followed him back to the kitchen, where Sara was standing with a broad smile on her face. “I called your father, he’s already on his way home,” she said without preamble. “You know how long we have left here?”

“Three and a half,” said Hunk.

“Half a year,” said Sara.

He didn’t see how this was—“Wait. _What?_ What’s that mean?”

“It means exactly what you heard,” said his mother. “Half a year, Hunk! The news just came out. Two years of residency total to become a citizen, now.” Sara radiated exuberance and the catharsis of a relief unleashed. “God fu—better bless the president. She was the one who proposed it and she’s the one who pushed it through the Nitijela. Two years instead of five, retroactive! My god, that woman knows exactly what she’s doing. She’s changed the letter of the law and broken the spirit, and may she live forever for it.”

“But why… but why now?” Hunk asked. Sina gently bumped his leg; he reached out—to comfort her or to be comforted, he couldn’t say—and passed his hand over Sina’s soft curly hair.

“She’s got her senses. Intuition. _Lagona_ ,” Sara said, pointing to Hunk. “And she’s got her brains. _Atamai_ ,” she said, pointing to Sina. “Put the two together. All the islands are bleeding people, my little Hunk—she’s just decided to be kind, and let it bleed quick.”

With the patterns of the wind and the water turning life stranger and harder, they’d only had a handful of straws to grasp, but even then one by one their choices had been plucked out of their hands. Anyone could still make the short trip to American Samoa, but Pago Pago kept such an eagle eye on its paperwork nowadays that they’d be identified as non-nationals in a heartbeat. Anyone could strike out west, but the old camps at Nauru were readily resurrected at a moment’s notice as cousin Manaia had discovered to his dismay. And anyone might try to become a citizen of a Pacific Island party to the Compact made with the States—and thus make the jump from their home to land elsewhere, in a brave new world.

His family had won their first gamble. Hunk had never felt so nervous in his life. “Then…” he said, his heart beating fast, his temples zapped by adrenaline, “where are we going to go?”

His mother looked at him, her face softening. “It’s okay to be afraid, Hunk,” Sara told him. “But remember what I’ve told you? We’ve got to see through our fear clearly, so long as we’re together—and even if we’re apart.”

 

 

**5\. Balmera**

The sunrise bled light like a fresh wound over the receding night sky. Like a badge of courage, Hunk thought. He turned his head, and watched Shay watch her first sunrise with silent bedazzlement written across her face. Like confetti at a ticker tape parade, his brain chattered on. Like the surface of a peach freshly skinned. Like…

He was tired, and daydreaming while half-awake. The frightening adrenaline high of another encounter with the Galra had vanished, and they’d all been running on little sleep at best. But it was a pleasant sort of daydream, Hunk decided: a good view, and in good company. 

Shay’s sigh broke the comfortable silence that lay between them. “I’m overjoyed to see the sun at last,” she said. “And know that I shall see it in the future. Have you ever had this feeling, to know that something so wondrous might become so common? But even then I’ll be sure to remember my good fortune.”

Hunk didn’t have to think long about the question. “Yeah,” he replied. The confidence of stability; the sense of belonging; the absence of fear. He tried not to dwell on the fact that his disappearance from the Garrison might endanger such prospects. “I know what you mean.”

“It seemed so.” Shay shifted her gaze from the horizon down to the near ground which had come apart from the Balmera’s pains, as from an axe blow to the head, and revealed its inner workings: buried shafts, half-crushed conveyors, an austere cave cluster here and there that had preserved life. “We can do well by our home now. The Galra were not kind. To them the Balmera was a mine, not something to be respected. They let it suffer, and… and at times I think some of us forgot too.”

“You all suffered though,” said Hunk. “It’s hard to juggle several things when you’re focused on this day and the next. I mean, I was angry about what Rax did, but what he and you and everyone else had to go through—“ He exhaled. “It’s not _right_ , when you know that something’s wrong with your home. If the Balmera died because of the Galra, and you had to leave…”

“I do not think it’s wrong to be bitter.” Shay pressed her hand to the crown of the Yellow Lion, which purred idly underneath their bodies like a scientist’s dream come true of a perpetual motion machine. Before their eyes, the brightening sky had started to turn the scattered crystals into a glittering maze of imperfect mirrors. “But I told Rax that’s no reason for us to stop caring for ourselves, and the Balmera too. The Balmera is our home; we couldn’t stand by and do nothing.” Shay smiled, her cheeks flushed. “We got into a lot of debates at dinner.”

“That sounds familiar.” Hunk chuckled. “My family’s like that too.”

Shay said, solemnly: “They must be very proud of you, for helping pilot Voltron and turn back the Galra.”

“… Well. They don’t know.”

The hoops that Shay wore swung wildly as she turned to look at Hunk. “How could they not?” she exclaimed, her mouth shaping itself into a lingering O on the last word.

“The Galra know about my world—they came in search of the Blue Lion, and we led them away,” said Hunk. “But my world doesn’t know about the Galra. I mean, we knew there was something weird called Voltron, but we found the Blue Lion without knowing what it really was—and then we had to leave right away. I… they probably tried to clamp down on news about it at home.” He couldn’t rid himself of the recurring terror that Zarkon might hold the whole of Earth as a hostage planet. Galra ships could leap to Earth in a single bound, and even defense by Voltron had its price to pay. The Lions’ attacks had hurt the Balmera where they struck; though the Balmera was a sentient living creature and Earth itself was not, the potential threat frightened him. He was well-acquainted with the mindless wrath of nature—as if humanity hadn’t already done enough to Earth itself, what could the Galra do? He had already witnessed what they were capable of, and knew that he’d only caught a glimpse of the worst.

 _Don’t let this get to you_ , he’d told himself before. _If Zarkon did that, he’d already be gloating. We’re such a backwater planet that he doesn’t care. He’s obsessed with the Lions; he has nothing left for us. Remember what Lance said: Earth is so trivial, he’ll forget it’s worth at least a pawn…_

Hunk had less faith than Lance in the immensity of Zarkon’s arrogance, and was less practiced at charming the worry out of himself. How could fear not warp his sight?

“Then how can you protect your own world?” Shay said. “As you have helped with mine.”

“Luck, I guess.” Hunk looked at his right hand, closed in a fist. He let himself relax, his fingers uncurl. In his mind, the Yellow Lion continued its low, soothing purr; the sound seemed to drain away the nausea that now and then still weakly threatened to overtake him. Hunk had never gone so long without being spacesick. “But we’re here now, so I want to help where I can. Like, where are you going to live? A lot of the underground tunnels look like they totally collapsed.”

“You need not worry about us,” said Shay, sanguine and stolid under the glow of early morning. Underground, her eyes had reflected only fire and luminous crystal; aboveground, her eyes shone fair like twin coins. “We can repair our homes, so long as the Balmera is healthy. I was most afraid when the great Robeast struck, because there was only so much suffering the Balmera could endure before it might die. It could provide for our needs, and in return we gave it our respect and care. But the Galra were uncaring—and that is enough to be cruel. I wish we could help you more, but our people have never been space farers. We wouldn’t know how to fight well.”

“I think it depends on what you mean by fight,” Hunk said. “When you helped me get the crystal—that’s fighting, isn’t it? When you told me you couldn’t stand by and let the Galra continue on—look, that’s fighting, too! You bought me time to escape, and that means something.”

“Well, if you talk of it like that,” Shay said, smiling to herself, “then I shall say at least I was fighting with my soul.”

Hunk grinned. “Yeah,” he agreed. “You were amazing.”

“So were you!”

“Uh, thanks,” Hunk said, feeling the flush in his face. “Let’s just agree we’re both cool, hurrah and woohoo all around. Do you want to see something else on the Balmera? I could ask Yellow to show you more of the surface.”

“I’ll have time enough to explore with my family,” said Shay. “But I would love to hear stories of other worlds than these. Like your home planet that you call Earth, or the great trade stations of the Altean Alliance, when they hollowed out the insides of giant asteroids and adorned them with the most magnificent docking rings. That’s what my grandmother told me.”

“I bet Princess Allura or Coran would jump to share stories with you about the Altean trade stations. No way I’m the expert here.” Hunk idly pushed his hair back from his forehead. “But a story from Earth? I could do that! Uh, let me see…”

 _Once_ , spoke the tinny echo of Sara in Hunk’s memory, _there was a great_ matai.

“Okay, here’s one,” said Hunk. “My mom used to tell me this when I was a kid. So my family is from this small island, in the sea.” He glanced at the utterly sealess expanse that flourished in front of them, and recalibrated his story to include definitions. It didn’t seem like the Balmera was a place for oceans. “And by that I mean this whole part of my world is covered in water, with small bits of land sprinkled in the water, islands in the sea.”

“So, much more water than the streams that I’ve seen underground,” Shay mused.

“A _lot_ more,” said Hunk. “You can travel across the water for weeks and weeks and never see land. And every once in a while we’re in the path of a cyclone or two. Um.” He cast about for a suitable comparison in the context of the Balmera. “When there’s an earthquake, the ground moves—so a cyclone’s kind of like that, I guess? Except instead of the earth moving under and around you, the water and the wind are trying to crush and blow you away.”

“That sounds frightening.” Shay frowned. “I know of rain too, though I haven’t experienced it myself as we weren’t allowed on the surface. But I do not like quakes. Those always happened when the Balmera was feeling worst.”

“Earth itself isn’t alive, I guess,” Hunk replied. “Technically. But the stuff that happens depends on how we’re treating it. Over time, the cyclones have gotten stronger. And one year…”

 _She was clever, and quick, and heard news of danger in the air and water_ , Sara would say.

“One year, there was a report that the cyclone was going to be really intense. Super intense. I could go on but I bet you’d get annoyed at super duper triple stress awful,” Hunk said.

Shay laughed. “I’ve not heard those words all put together before! So it would not frustrate me,” she replied.

Hunk slid a playful glance her way, and said, “So, this _super duper triple stress awful_ cyclone is running on its way to my home, and my grandma studied cyclones. Well, that was one of her jobs, to study weather, and the other job was basically arguing with people, but—well.“ Hunk shrugged.

_She held power enough to be heard in turn, and after she made preparations, she left the capital. She thought it could bear the storm—but she worried for her old village._

“So she runs home and says, ‘We need to set up something to deal with this.’ And her friends say, ‘Look, we’ve seen these before, we can deal with it.’ But she says, ‘Not this one. We’re already vulnerable, a low-lying area. You have no idea how bad it’ll be, and it’s going to hit us first.’”

Shay nodded; said nothing, her eyes rounded with fascination and dread.

 _With one word she felled all dissent; and, given the power to move the village, she ordered it so_. His mother’s voice beat out its gentle rhythm. _Better our people than our houses_ , she said. _Better the land than the sea._

“Ultimately they decide, ‘We’ve listened to her before, why not now.’ So everyone pulls up and leaves. I mean, they thought it’d be temporary.”

“But was it?” Shay asked. “I fear where this story leads.”

“Hey, would I tell you a story with a sad ending?” Hunk exclaimed. “Happy endings all around! Happy ending for you and the Balmera, happy ending here. Okay, where was I? Anyway, the storm comes. It rolls right over my grandma’s village. It rolls right over the village next to it. It rolls right up to the place where they’d staked out their ground. All the systems are failing, for water and elec—” Did they have electricity here? Hunk rushed to edit. “—and power, so it’s dark and cold.”

_She saw well, because the sea came and rushed over the land as swift and fierce as the wrath of the war goddess herself. The people lashed themselves to the trees, but not all were so fortunate._

“Even my grandma doesn’t expect how bad the flooding gets. The water totally covers the houses, and it reaches up to the very top of the trees. And there’s this little boy who can’t hold on. He’s nearly swept away, but my grandma miraculously catches him by the arm and drags him up higher above the water level. She has enough time to untie herself and use that rope to secure him before the water chases them higher.”

 _She traded her spot for the child, and as the raging water came again, her hold broke_ —here Sara’s voice would crack, too— _and_ —

“But she can’t hold on, and gets swept away.”

“And this is _not_ a sad ending?” Shay said, a little indignant.

“I haven’t finished!” Hunk protested. “Two days later, they found her tangled up in a load of rubble near the coast. Alive! She was in the hospital for two weeks, but she made it out. The best part—“

Shay let out a long breath. “That is good enough for me,” she said. “I confess I thought you would tell a different kind of story.”

“Uh, sorry about that,” Hunk said sheepishly. “I was just reminded of this one first. But you know what the best part is?” He laughed, for sometimes he couldn’t help but be amazed at the vagaries of fate, the strange coincidences—or not: easier to marvel at the happy endings, than the ones that weren’t. “That’s how my grandma, my mom’s mom, saved my dad. That boy was my dad. Can you believe it?”

“ _Really?_ ” Shay drew in a sharp breath. “That—oh! How brave.” Her voice trembled. “There were times when we faced sacrifice as well, with the Balmera, when we had to…” Shay didn’t offer to elaborate further. Hunk reminded himself: he’d only seen a glimpse of the worst. “She too, she fought with her soul. I would like to meet your grandma sometime. What was her name?”

“Um.” Hunk blinked, and cast his gaze down. “She passed away a few years after that, actually. I never got to meet her, I just hear about her in the stories my parents tell.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Shay said quietly. “What happened?”

“… The usual, really.” Hunk had promised Shay a happy ending; he didn’t add that his old home, painted vivid in his memory, saw many cyclones nowadays. His grandmother had tried the same trick twice. _And that is how the life of the great_ matai _ended with the sea_ , Sara would finish. _So remember to honor the sea, and fear it, and see through the fear clearly._

“Her name was Nafanua,” he said. “My mom’s called Sara—she thinks it’s funny that her name’s so plain in comparison.”

“They’re both good names,” Shay said firmly. “For good people. Hunk is a good name too.”

“Hah. My dad would agree with you,” Hunk mumbled. Not that Shay knew Earth slang.

“As he should!” Shay glanced up at the sky. The first flush of dawn had passed, and the Balmeran crystals now shone as bright as disemboweled engines under the sun. “Thank you for the story. But are you tired? I thought you might be, earlier.”

“Not anymore,” said Hunk. “Actually, I’d love to hear a story from you, if that’s all right? About the Balmera—with the Galra, or without, whatever you want. Just how it was, to live here.”

“A story for a story?” Shay murmured, and smiled down at the Yellow Lion. “But of course!”

 

 

**3\. Arkansas, USA**

“The boot went under,” his new neighbor had told him, “so me and my husband, we had to sell off and move up here a while back, yeah. Now where are you from, Hunk?”  
   
He blinked. “Uh,” he said. “I guess it’s kind of a long story, Mrs. Zhang.”  
   
“Call me Tante Eva,” she said blithely. “And you can call Albert Mr. Z, he likes that nickname. Long’s no problem— _mais_ , a life story’s one way to pass a good time as any.”

Certainly she enjoyed passing time this way. Mr. Z was a shrimper turned university fish farm employee; Tante Eva was a vocational school teacher turned ad hoc practicing mechanic. Their daughter had been telling them for the better part of two decades that they should move, and at long last they had reluctantly heeded her advice and left Louisiana for the Ozarks. “She’s in the Corps of Engineers,” Tante Eva told him, “and she tells me three things: the levees are shit, the salinity is shit, and the land’s turned to shit.” She’d announced these verdicts with a perfectly beatific smile, as if the combination of three factors had not caused her any grief whatsoever. Yet they had. “So we came here. We thought about moving to Canada—you’ve heard the old joke, no? Or China—but those are the lands of our ancestors, not us. And anyway Albert said to me that why I do believe our place is here where we can find it.”

“That’s a good way to think about it. Though I don’t know about the finding part,” Hunk admitted. “I’m used to living all over, and I like making new friends, I guess. We hopped around in the Pacific, and when we moved over we stopped off in Hawaii. And Utah too. Then some friends of the family said we should join them here, so—“ He shrugged. “I haven’t been back to Samoa in a while. But least my family’s with me, if that counts.” He reached up to touch his headband and strained to remember, but conjured up little beyond the echo of his grandfather’s voice. The pungent smell of nut oil. The glimmer of silver-scaled waves.

“Of course that counts,” said Tante Eva. “If they weren’t anywhere, you’d be up a dry creek, teaspoon in hand.”

“Uh. Why would you need a teaspoon if the creek’s dry?” asked Hunk, furrowing his brow. “You don’t even need to engineer anything fancy, you can walk up the creek and just throw it away.”

Tante Eva didn’t talk for some minutes afterward as she had near bust a gut laughing.

*

Several Saturdays after Hunk received his acceptance to the Galaxy Garrison, the local university’s engineering department hosted another talk in its lecture series that discussed the challenges to preventive geotech projects. Mr. Z picked him up after the talk let out, as usual, since it coincided with the end of his work shift. They’d been neighbors for under a decade but more than half, and knew each other’s schedules well enough.

“How was it?” Mr. Z asked.

“Dunno,” said Hunk. “A weird combo of pipe dream proposals and really, really unambitious work. I’m not trying to be mean—“

“Hmm,” Mr. Z said, “You don’t strike me as the sort who’s intentionally mean to the undeserving.”

“Aw man, I don’t want to be unintentionally mean, either!” Hunk said. “Just… critical. Real, respectful constructive critique. Some things need to be fixed, you know?” 

“Well, how about this? My proposal,” Mr. Z proclaimed, “is to create a mechanical jaw that works like a lunge-feeding whale. Crank it a few sizes up, and there you got your magic water cleaning operation.”

“Eh, that kinda sounds like a pipe dream.”

“I see you enjoy your respectful critique an awful lot,” commented Mr. Z. “How about my driving?”

“Aw, Mr. Z, you know I love your driving.” Hunk grinned at his neighbor, who possessed an astonishingly selective blindness for stop signs; and although Hunk had already passed the nav test for his license a few months back, Mr. Z still insisted on taking the controls by claiming the right of seniority and the lesser likelihood of pull over hassle. “Mechanical jaw is totally ambitious work.”

“Hmm,” Mr. Z said, and managed to imbue the one syllable with considerably more catlike satisfaction than before.

Once they’d gotten Mr. Z’s old hover scooter parked in a cramped corner of the apartment complex lot, he followed Mr. Z up the stairs to the Zhangs’ apartment and waited for him to unlock the door. “Sina,” he called. “How’s the cake coming along?”

His little sister emerged from the kitchen, followed by a visibly amused Tante Eva. “Ha ha, very funny. No such thing,” Sina grumbled. Wisps of hair escaped from her crown braid in all directions, making her look frazzled—as she well was. “You can do the rest, you got landed with the cooking skills in the family.”

“It’s all about patience and love,” Hunk said with a cheery flourish, and strolled in to swap places with her.

Hunk, Sara, and Tante Eva were a better-oiled machine in the kitchen, which suited them all just fine. Over the next hour or so they produced a pan of sweet cornbread; a beautifully plated catfish with greens and dried shrimp; a huge pot of coconut rice; a cluster of crawfish, gleaming deep red, which cheerfully menaced the bed of mashed yams on which they rested—and if Sina might have snagged a few morsels to devour beforehand, they turned a blind eye. They set the dishes out on the table, while Mr. Z headed off to talk Hunk’s father into coming over on some dubiously normal pretext. Iosefa worked night shifts in meat processing; he rarely shared details, unwittingly hogged shower time, and was usually bone-deep tired and asleep in bed—“but,” Sara said briskly, “it’s about time he get up anyway, considering the occasion.”

And get up he did, because he followed Mr. Z through the doorway half an hour later, to be greeted by the raucous chorus of “Happy birthday!”

“Whoa!” said Iosefa, blinking owlishly. He was short and slight; Sina had taken after him, Hunk after their mother. Sometimes Hunk still found it surreal to be looking down, rather than up, at his father, for he’d had a late growth spurt. “Well then! You’ve all got more smarts than me, since I was thinking my birthday was tomorrow.” 

“Night shift’s messing up your brain, Dad,” Sina said. She picked up a crawfish and struck a pose. “You gotta fight the menace of time!”

“You do that,” murmured Mr. Z in an aside to Iosefa. “As for me, I’m keeping my salt and pepper hair.”

Iosefa drew Sara into a tight embrace, with a kiss to the cheek; then he did the same for Hunk, and for Sina. He nodded gratefully at their neighbors. “Thank you,” he said. “Forgive me, Sina, your silly father’s brain can’t measure up to yours. Did you help with this?”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘help,’” Sina replied. “I think Mom was tripping over me about as much as she could.”

“Take a moment to claim responsibility, dear,” said Tante Eva. “It sure isn’t ‘cause she was looking to trip over you!”

Sina opened her mouth to toss off a casual retort, except then Hunk bellowed, “DINNER TIME!”

And so it was. They went round the table—cheers for Iosefa’s birthday, for Hunk’s Garrison admission, for Tante Eva’s turbine replacement, for Sara’s new contract job. For each one, Sina twisted the tail off a crawfish, then pulled the meat out of the shell and passed it round the table to the person of honor. 

“Ah,” said Iosefa. “This is the nicest send-off to work I’ve had all year.” To which Sina said, pertly, “This is the nicest send-off to work you have _every_ year, Dad.”

Iosefa only beamed in response; Hunk sat, and quietly relished the sight. Once upon a time his father had been more prone to laughter, to wild delight, to playful antics. Sina wouldn’t be able to recall the change in his demeanor, but the melancholy had started to fall like a curtain once they had moved to the Marshall Islands, and by the time they finished bouncing around and settled down in the Ozarks the stage had been set. But Hunk didn’t want to begrudge his father for that. He knew only that deep down inside, Iosefa felt that he hadn’t been a good enough son; and so Hunk wanted, at least, to show him that he was a good father. “How’s your wrist, Dad?” he asked.

“Sore,” said Iosefa. He let Hunk put some catfish on his plate. “Good thing I can use both pretty well, eh?”

“I’m almost finished with that cold pack rig-up, so give me another week and you can try it out.”

“Keep it for yourself, Hunk,” his father mumbled. “You do enough fiddling that your hands need it too. Too late for me, but you can start early.”

“Geez, Hunk offered so just take it,” Sina cut in impatiently. “That’s like saying you got pneumonia going on two weeks and it’s too late so we won’t bother. Da- _ad_ …”

“Ma- _a_ -sina,” said Iosefa, mimicking her singsong delivery. Father and daughter both burst into giggles.

“How _do_ you do it with three kids in the house?” Hunk heard Tante Eva joke to Sara.

“I get you to babysit them, don’t I?” Sara dryly returned, without batting an eyelash. Then, lowering her voice: “You might be babysitting a few more, by the way.”

Mr. Z hit his spoon against the inside of the pot as he scooped rice out. It rang with a loud clang over Tante Eva’s reply: “So, when’s that?”

“When I run out of leftovers,” Sara said. “Since their case is still stuck in court.”

“About time I do some cleaning anyway.” Tante Eva frowned, the line of her mouth thinned with concern. “Lord, this is some prime nonsense.”

“They’re just agitating over bullshit,” Mr. Z added. “Those saying to hell with the Compact and the EMA and all that, they ought to go boil their heads. Thank God you’re off to the Garrison, Hunk—“ He tapped the tines of his fork against his lips. “It’s no guarantee, but who would sniff at your service?”

“ _Couillon_ , that’s who,” grumbled Tante Eva.

“ _Couillon?_ ” echoed Sina.

“Fools!” Tante Eva said. Her hair gleamed silver, fierce even under dim light. “Who should know better. Show them your mettle at the Garrison, Hunk. Out-engineer the hell out of your class. Count on yourself. You’re as damn worthy as the rest of us all.”

“Got it,” Hunk said. His stomach flipped with disquiet. “I know—I can count on myself. And I’m counting on all of you too, okay? I mean, I couldn’t do this without you.” He looked at Sara over the table; the sight of his mother’s smile near blinded him. They’d come a long way.

“You’re welcome!” chirped Sina. “Don’t plan on my brother crashing and burning anytime soon.” She pointed with her fork at one of the plates. “Cornbread?”

“Yes, please,” Mr. Z said into the companionable silence; coughed; cast a sheepish gaze around the dinner party. “Hmm,” he said. “I’m sorry, did we just have a moment?”

 

 

**6\. Castle of Lions**

One of his baby teeth was beginning to wiggle; he’d lose it in a fortnight. The dog next door was barking. And through the walls, in his dream, he could hear the sound of weeping. Jumbled words—his father, saying: _I should’ve known better. I should’ve done more. I should’ve…_

Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve. Hunk opened his eyes and stared blindly up into the darkness. Proper sleep eluded him: he felt as if his whole body was set to tremble, channeling the unsettled rumble of the Yellow Lion which lay restless in the hangar bay.

If the kitchen systems weren’t in need of repair, he would have headed straight there to relieve his stress through the successes and failures of experimental cooking—but that was out of the question. The training deck held no attraction for him; he’d never enjoyed combatives classes at the Garrison, much less self-directed spars with bots which had just earlier that day turned on Keith. He didn’t want to learn Altean from the holodeck interface this late at night, his mind still disordered and uneasy. And the pool Coran had told him about could only be a pale, failed distortion of the images his nostalgia held dear. Whenever he thought of days past—“the hopscotch days,” so Sina called them, when they’d been kids hopping from abode to abode set out in their lives like squares chalked on the ground—he knew that if he had to be close to water, he’d rather be close to the sea. It held more salt water than all the tears in the world.

Well, Hunk considered—what were his feet for if not to travel?

Off the bunk; out the door. Hunk walked circles around the sleeping quarters. “I bet Keith is asleep,” he speculated under his breath on the third pass. “Nearly blown out of the airlock? Big deal, just another day. Lance… hmm, listening to music. Cool-down chill time’s worth as much as actual sleep to him. Pidge, um…” He tapped the side of his jaw as he paused outside Pidge’s room. “Those memories from Sendak, right, she’ll be looking for clues.”

The classic jingle of Super Trooper Smash, jailbroken console-free laptop version, merrily chimed its way through the door. Hunk startled, stifled a giggle, and tiptoed on.

Beyond was Shiro’s room. Did Shiro sleep? He surely must, yet Hunk was surprised to find that he had trouble imagining it. He didn’t know Shiro from Before, like Keith; he didn’t idolize Shiro from Before, like Lance; he didn’t have family lost with Shiro Before, like Pidge. “He has to sleep,” Hunk muttered to himself. He was only human.

The sensor locks on the doors to Coran and Allura’s quarters both indicated an unoccupied status. Coran had lost the last remnant of his friend, Allura the last of her father. “ _But that means losing King Alfor forever!_ ” Coran had cried, in the face of Allura’s grimset determination, and what was left but to make do with their memories?

They wouldn’t even try to pursue sleep.

Hunk dithered a moment longer, then retraced his steps through the quarters; then past the training deck, down starlit hallways, past the medical wing… onward, till he came to the control room. He could hear the mice chattering away in their usual manner, incomprehensible to all but Allura, and the princess’s answering laugh.

“Um,” Hunk said, poking his head into the room. “Princess Allura, do you mind if I sit with you for a bit?”

Allura sat at the edge of the dais; she’d been watching the mice act out what looked to Hunk like an oddball mime performance, or perhaps a scene from some famous Altean play. She looked up as Hunk approached. “Please, do,” she said, and smiled as Hunk sat to her left. What grief she might carry was shuttered firmly behind her eyes; she alone wore the mantle of Princess of Altea, the Last, as both a blessing and a curse—too weary to love it, and too dedicated to hate it. “Look, the mice are doing a little skit.”

One of the mice went flailing about like it was about to be thrown out of an airlock, then stiffened and collapsed dramatically upon the ground. Another struck a magisterial pose and made buzzing noises; and then the third dashed up to the second, clasping it firmly around the waist. They embraced and didn’t let go, and toppled together onto their sides as if turned to stone statues. The fourth made as if to dab at its invisible tears with an invisible handkerchief.

Allura laughed again, this time more choked—but when Hunk glanced at her face, she was tearless. “I remember I was told that such crass comedy was unbecoming for a princess to enjoy,” she said. “But I always thought slapstick was a wonderful relief. It was my guilty pleasure,” she confessed to Hunk, without any embarrassment at all.

Hunk hadn’t witnessed a hugging party, but he could guess at what had transpired beyond his sight. Alfor had gone, and only Allura remained, but the two mice still embraced each other as they lay on the ground, tangible and real. It was a fanciful, fictional reenactment.

“I like it,” Hunk said.

Allura rested her chin in her right hand, right elbow propped up on her knee. “We’ve had a harrowing day,” she said to him. “You should rest soon, Hunk. You came to the Castle-ship as a Paladin and also as my responsibility, and I should have been more vigilant.”

“Not just you! All of us, really,” Hunk said. “I mean, I could’ve thought more too about why the kitchen system was malfunctioning. Seriously, taking potshots at us with edible goo? None of us expect our homes to turn on us, so don’t blame yourself for that.”

“I do not,” said Allura, her voice sapped of its usual tone of command. She reached out and gently tipped all the mice back upright. They clustered around her hands and tossed her inquisitive looks, their whiskers aquiver. She added, “I’m only reminding myself.”

“I meant what I said earlier, you know,” Hunk said, watching Allura clasp her hands together with an distant veneer over her eyes. “We’re all sorry about your father. If I can help with anything…” He paused. _I’m not great at this, am I?_ he thought. _Maybe I should just try to distract her more._ “Do you know if Coran could dig up some more old Altean recipes? We probably don’t have the right ingredients, but I could give it a shot. It’s not going to taste like the traditional dishes you remember, but I can play around with the balance for flavor. I grew up with my mom showing me the ropes of the kitchen,” and his voice grew fond, “so I’m pretty sure I won’t cook up a dud dish.”

“Ah,” said Allura. “So you learned from your mother.”

The pause stretched out, like taffy pulled thrice over. “Uh,” said Hunk. “So maybe I could go look for Coran, he might know?”

Allura shook her head. “Coran is reviewing our process controls,” she said. “Perhaps later. But I’ve been a harsh taskmaster, haven’t I? Now that I think about it, I’ve never asked you if you wanted to go home.”

A gasp caught in Hunk’s throat, and came out as an indignant squawk. “Wait, this isn’t like a demotion, is it?” he said. “I’ll definitely be more suspicious of anything weird in the future, I swear. Though I guess a lot of things out here are weird—“

“Of course not! I couldn’t have asked for better Paladins.” Allura rose to her feet. “But when I think about today—when I could still speak with my father, I was so happy to talk about our old memories and old stories. But now that he’s gone…”

Hunk thought about Allura’s words. Then he thought about his mother and his father; the grandparents he had known or never knew; the stories that were told, and the untold sentiments that stung like invisible mosquitoes. “Now that he’s gone,” he said, slowly, “are you angry?”

“No!” Allura replied. “Not—I don’t think so. I don’t _want_ to be angry with him.” She didn’t look down at Hunk, letting her gaze settle upon the empty control seats instead. “But it was easier to talk about good times, and now I wished I’d pushed my father’s AI harder about the most difficult decisions he made at the very end. Well.” Her smile was bitter. “There’s no right or wrong decision I can judge with confidence, until we come out on the other side of this war in victory or defeat. _Then_ I can tell myself my father was right to decide that I should be left in cryo-pod stasis and wake up thousands of years in the future, no matter what I argued, because he loved me and he believed I could win.”

Allura raised her left hand, and set it on Hunk’s shoulder. “And _then_ ,” she continued, “I can tell your families that I was right to decide you should fight with me, no matter what you didn’t know at first, though I have ultimate control over the Castle-ship and never asked once if you wanted to go back—when you found me, I _had_ to recruit you, because I needed you all for the war. And I believe we can win. We _must_ win. So if I say I resent my father, shouldn’t I resent myself for following in his footsteps?”

“No!” Hunk burst out. “Princess Allura—“ He bit his lower lip. “King Alfor didn’t have much time. You didn’t have much time. He made his decision, and it’s over, and so much stuff has happened that I don’t think you could say it was right or wrong except that maybe it would’ve been nice if he gave you a heads up and a better gameplan than, well,” he gestured to himself, “what you got. But it’s different with us. We’ve made our decision and we’re making it every day, to fight with you. And I won’t lie, sometimes I feel like my nerves are gonna get scared out of existence, but…”

 _I should’ve done more_ , said the voice of his father as he remembered it; as he had heard the dog barking up a ruckus in the neighbor’s yard; as he had felt the first baby tooth coming loose in his mouth, as it did for all people who would—in the end—grow up. So Hunk didn’t regret his decision. He hoped he wouldn’t, in the future.

“Our families might get angry at us, whenever we go back,” he said. “They’ll love us and get angry because they love us and had no idea what happened to us, and because we left them in the dark. They’re not wrong to be angry, and I don’t think it’s wrong if you’re angry at King Alfor too. But Allura, if I really wanted out of this I would’ve asked you ages ago. I mean, you’re cool! You’re not scary. Well,” he gave her a sheepish smile, “not _that_ scary. Sometimes Lance and I talk about the Garrison, and our families, but—we’re here for a good reason. It’s worth it.”

He got to his feet as well, and took advantage of Allura’s loosening grip on his shoulder to give her an awkward one-armed hug. “We made our own choices,” Hunk said. “Seriously, don’t worry about that tonight. I—I can’t imagine saying goodbye forever to my parents, so… look, I’m going to go to bed, and I’m gonna wake up early and get the kitchen fixed, and we’re going to have the most _amazing_ breakfast. You’ll love it.”

The mice squeaked loudly, and in unison made a gesture as if to doff their invisible chef’s hats. Allura couldn’t help but laugh, the sound spilling out like running water—tempered by grief, yet gilded by the surprise of muted mirth.

“Knowing you?” she said, looking Hunk in the eye with a faint smile. “I’m sure I will.”

 

 

**1\. Samoa**

“Hanson! Han- _son!_ ”

The old beach had been inundated by the king tides for years now. Along the capricious edge of the sea ran the land as yet unconquered, where the ailing grass whipped itself up into angry tufts among clusters of ill-wrought stone. And along the edge of the land ran a young boy, who came to a narrow canal set deep into the receding soil, nimbly leapt over it, and scrambled up the makeshift embankment that sloped upward from the canal. At the top he could look afar and see the fetau trees that had been planted along the western end as another barrier of protection. And beyond: the glimmer of silver-scaled waves, rolling and roiling under a blistering sun.

The young boy (who no one yet called Hunk) turned away and dashed across the road to the clustered houses where he lived. His grandfather Hanipale was sitting on the steps; he wore a _lavalava_ around his waist, and a frown on his face. “I thought you said you wanted to test something from your book,” he said, “but I see you went to gather nuts instead?”

“I read something in the book Mom brought home, and I was thinking—Grandpa, we can figure out a better way to speed-dry them before the hard press…”

Hanipale was shaking his head. “Where you’re going,” he said, “you shouldn’t worry about such things. Take it from this one who’s been there and back.”

“Dunno why you don’t want to go again,” Hanson said, a little sulkily. “I don’t want to leave you behind.”

“This one’s too tired to get kicked round like a ball.” His grandfather only shrugged and reached out to muss Hanson’s hair. “I already moved out for work when I was young, and I chose to come back here to live and die. So here I am and here I’ll stay in the land of my ancestors. Wouldn’t have thought it, but having kids in my middle age… Hey now, you shouldn’t pull such faces about it, you look like your father did that one time he swallowed a lime for a bet.” He withdrew his hand and reached behind him, patting blindly around the top step. “Anyway, now look. Aha, here we are! I’ve got a little something for you.”

He passed Hanson a long _siapo_ ribbon, the barkcloth dyed bright orange like sunset on a fine summer’s day. “My namesake,” he said with a wink. “Clean, new, cost-effective, water-resistant. _Ta’afi_ , to use as you like! The best kind of rags. It’s from the newest batch out of Elei’s place.”

Hanipale had worked in advertisement for clothing retailers and liked to claim his job was foreordained by his middle name, Ta’afi. Hanson gave Hanipale a blank look: he’d heard the joke too many times to count by now. “I guess I could use it for scrubbing?” he said.

“Hanson!” Hanipale said, outraged. “Use it for something good, like a bookmark!”

“A belt?”

“Acceptable,” said his grandfather, looking somewhat mollified. “Though I don’t think it’s long enough.”

“I’ll figure something out,” Hanson said absentmindedly. He stuffed the ribbon into his pocket and rocked back on his heels. “Mom says Auntie Sava’s got a new solar motor hook-up down the road,” he said. “I’m gonna go check it out."

“Are you really going to Sava’s or is it your excuse to go wander off?” Hanipale raised his eyebrows. “You don’t want to end up like your grandmother, do you? God rest her soul.”

“I’ll tie myself to a tree with this little bit,” Hanson said, patting his pocket, for he had not yet left behind childish fearlessness. “To keep me grounded. But weathercaster says no storms, not now.”

“In the future—“

“I’ll see them as they come,” said Hanson. “Look, Grandpa, I’ll just go along the wall. Sky’s clear!” He pointed upward.

“… So it is,” said his grandfather. “So it is. Doesn’t it look grand?” Together they squinted up at the heavens, illuminated by the radiance of the sun. Common in its familiarity, wondrous in its splendor.

Light years away, years in the future, Shay would wish for much the same of sunrise over the Balmera, her first and only home—and it settled in Hunk’s heart, that old sight treasured and lost and steadfastly remembered even across the span of innumerable galaxies. The sun of his youth would not reach Hunk again soon.

 _But it’s worth it_ , he thought. _It’s worth it._ For he knew better now what the universe contained, the delight and danger of it all; and knew better, too, what it meant to be brave.

*  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to [Arrleya](https://arrleya.tumblr.com/)!!! aka the talented artist who created the amazing piece you see above and who has been a wonderful partner to work with throughout the course of this mini bang--please send all appreciation for the art [her way](http://leyadoes.tumblr.com/post/163698703956/and-here-is-my-piece-for-voltrongenminibang-ive)! ♥ ♥ ♥ I just. SHAY. the little shrimp & fish around Lance! Sina grouching "no paper"! HUNK & BETRA'S HOMEWORK EXCUSES lolol
> 
> Not gonna dump tl;dr backstory notes here, but I couldn't resist providing context for a few fave references:  
> \+ The Compact mentioned in the fic is a future bastardized version of the [Compact of Free Association](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_of_Free_Association). Hunk also mentions the Compact in my [Shiro backstory fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8021791), set in the same continuity.  
> \+ Hunk made up the game Fish Clap Catch himself after he showed Sina [fa'ataupati](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa%27ataupati) [videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snW37LE1-Ug) and she wanted to play with the moves.  
> \+ Tante Eva is from [Acadiana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadiana). Mr. Z joked about playing God with the Atchafalaya for [good reason](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/02/23/atchafalaya).  
> \+ Hunk's maternal grandmother, Nafanua, was named after the [Samoan goddess of war](https://www.nps.gov/npsa/learn/historyculture/nafanua.htm).
> 
> & feel free to hit me up @ [tumblr](https://dtriad.tumblr.com/) if you want to talk Voltron. :) Thank you for reading!


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